Sivertson Gallery Patrons Letter

I am writing to let you know about an exciting new business adventure we are embarking on. We are developing a publishing studio in Grand Marais to create giclees of regional artist’s work, using pigmented inks and archival canvasses and papers, the best quality on the market today. We are selecting some of your favorite artists and favorite paintings to bring back to the walls of Sivertson Gallery. These fine art prints will last upwards of 100 years, much much longer than the mechanical offset prints of the past, and in most cases as long as a hand pulled original print. And the images are brilliant. Liz Sivertson says ‘wow, the prints look just as great as the originals’.

Some people have shared their concerns about the value of the original being affected by prints being made from the original image. Most experts and people will agree that having prints made of an original painting adds value to the original. Printing an image creates a broader exposure and love for the image, which is THE primary means of adding value to anything.

In order to produce a fine art giclee, we will be taking a very high quality photo or scan of the original. The image will be ‘cleaned up’ in photoshop (dust specks and minor imperfections are removed). In some cases our photoshop expert, Mark Tessier, will be working with the artist to enhance certain features of the original until ‘the new image’ reveals itself (a completely creative and collaborative process). The new original will then be printed using the highest quality pigmented inks onto the best quality canvas available today or the best quality 100% rag papers. The intention in this process is to create a new art form of the highest quality for the best price, making these images available to a broad range of folks in order to enhance their living and/or work spaces….spreading the love.

For every great artist there is the exceptional and truly inspired masterpiece that comes along once in a great while. Sivertson Gallery wishes to choose these images to create giclees from in order to offer more opportunities for those images to be enjoyed. This practice also enhances and adds value to the original which creates a win-win scenario for everyone. The patron of the original gets added value to their investment, the artist gets a more sustainable income, and the gallery gets the joy of offering stronger, better images along with a sustainable income which provides jobs and benefits to the overall regional economy.

I trust that you will join us in celebrating this new endeavor to create sustainability for regional artists and great images for your homes and offices at affordable prices. Each published artwork will be available as a limited edition in a variety of sizes, and each published giclee will come with a certificate of authenticity.

We will be working first with Dave Gilsvik, Liz Sivertson and Howard Sivertson. We will be resurrecting some great old paintings of Howard’s and Liz’s. We will be publishing Dave’s masterpieces as he paints them. As we gather momentum in this project, we will be adding artists to our repertoire, specifically Aaron Kloss from Duluth and Susan Novak from Minneapolis who won the Grand Marais Art Colony Pleine Air Exhibition in September, along with many other fine artists in the region.

I understand that this may be a sensitive issue for some of you, so please feel free to call me to discuss your thoughts or concerns, or email me at jan@sivertson.com.

Help us to create a stronger artistic community on the shores of the largest fresh water lake in the world! To further motivate you to participate in this new endeavor, we will be donating 10% of our profits earned from the sale of these new giclees to the process of creating an artist’s professional organization for the North Shore of Lake Superior, a long held dream of mine.